Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons^™

Does Regulatory Scrutiny Change Investment Behavior? Evidence Of Suboptimal Portfolio Rebalancing After The Financial Crisis, Willie Dion Reddic

Business Administration - Dissertations

Insurers that show losses are expected to sell tax-free securities and replace them with taxable securities since they can no longer benefit from tax savings. However, rebalancing these portfolios after the financial crisis would entail recognizing additional losses during a time period when their financial performance was under stress and their industry was under increased scrutiny. I examine portfolio rebalancing behavior using the period after the financial crisis as a proxy for increased regulatory scrutiny. I predict and find that insurers with losses subsequent to the financial crisis were less likely to increase their ratio of taxable/nontaxable securities. Insurers ...

Social Entrepreneurship And Wealth-Building Plans: Creative Strategies For Working Class Americans, Wayne R. Curtis

Dissertations & Theses

This study investigated how the elements of social entrepreneurship with wealth-building strategies can advance the creation of wealth and serve as a mechanism for social change. This research takes a modest first step toward demystifying social entrepreneurship, better understanding the phenomenon, and exploring the relevance of wealth-building in social entrepreneurial activity. Specifically, this exploratory study used a multiple case study design to understand how existing social entrepreneurial ventures include wealth-building strategies, such as employee stock ownership plans for working class Americans. The concept of social entrepreneurship is relatively new. There is general agreement that the concept combines a passion for ...

Not All Risk Is Born Equal: The Behavioral Agency Model & Firm Efficacy, Geoffrey P. Martin Dr, Nathan T. Washburn Dr, Marianna Makri Dr

Geoffrey P Martin

We examine the relationship between agent (CEO) risk bearing and the quality of executive risk taking outcomes, by examining the contingency effect of CEO perceived firm efficacy. In doing so, we extend the behavioral agency model (BAM) beyond predictions of risk magnitude to examining how CEO risk taking outcomes differ qualitatively in response to risk bearing. We argue that CEO risk bearing (due to stock options or cash compensation) will positively influence performance outcomes in the presence of higher perceived firm efficacy. However, this positive influence reverses when efficacy is lower. We demonstrate the utility of firm efficacy in exploring ...

Inclusive Business: Using For-Profit Business Models To Address Global Poverty, Samuel James Conner

Senior Honors Papers

Due to the rise of globalization, modernization, and the Internet revolution, awareness of global poverty has expanded, making its eradication a chief goal of the global development community for the twenty-first century. Though corporations are often expected to participate in social and community development initiatives without regard for profits, this paper presents inclusive business as a way for businesses to profitably engage impoverished segments of society. Inclusive businesses seek to expand their consumer bases or strengthen their supply chains by moving into new markets among the poor that have limited access to global markets and remain largely untapped. The research ...

Netflix: A Strategy To Succeed?, John Landi, Sean Roberts

Master's Level Graduate Research Conference

Netflix remodeled the video rental market with its DVD-by-mail service, but they have changed their strategy and they want to focus on instant streaming. Competitors like Amazon prime, Hulu Plus and Redbox have all made names for themselves, and have started to take customers from Netflix. Netflix wants to stay ahead of their competitors so they wanted to increase their streamlining capabilities. To focus on streaming, Netflix wanted to re-brand their DVD-by-mail service, and changed their pricing to focus on streaming. This paper will focus on the strategy Netflix used to re-brand its DVD-by-mail service, and the price changes Netflix ...

Which Airline Manufacturer Will Be The Industry Leader In Five Years?, David Burdick, Joseph Diponzio

Master's Level Graduate Research Conference

Within the Airline Manufacturing Industry there have been two prominent leaders, Airbus and Boeing. Both have become emerging leaders with the introduction of new aircraft such as the AirbusA380 as well as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Throughout time, there have been many different aircraft manufacturing companies and now we see Boeing and Airbus rise to the top. Boeing has a rich history which dates back to 1916. Airbus has only been around since 1970 but has been a huge rival for Boeing. A number of different barriers and occurrences have happened to these companies over time but a lot of ...

Rhody's Run For Dana-Farber 5k, Bryan P. Poston, Mark Albanese

Senior Honors Projects

The event itself was designed to benefit the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Jimmy Fund. In the early stages of the project, it was clear that a charity event would have the largest impact both on our experiential learning as well as the community as a whole. Dana-Farber was selected as the events beneficiary due to their impressive contributions to cancer research worldwide. While the success of the project isn't solely determined by charitable contributions we collected, it provided a form of measurement of progress throughout the semester. With the goal of simultaneously promoting student health, the event was ...

Rhody's Run For Dana Farber 5k, Mark Albanese, Bryan Poston

Senior Honors Projects

The event itself was designed to benefit the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Jimmy Fund. In the early stages of the project, it was clear that a charity event would have the largest impact both on our experiential learning as well as the community as a whole. Dana-Farber was selected as the events beneficiary due to their impressive contributions to cancer research worldwide. While the success of the project isn't solely determined by charitable contributions we collected, it provided a form of measurement of progress throughout the semester. With the goal of simultaneously promoting student health, the event was ...

Influences On Supply Manager Behavior Toward Environmental Responsibility, James Anthony Swaim

Dissertations, Theses and Capstone Projects

As firms invest a substantial amount of time, effort, and funds to purchase goods and services, it is questionable if organizations will reach environmental sustainability objectives without supply manager active involvement. Although existing research has identified low supply manager support for environmental buying, there is little theoretical understanding and explanation relating corporate environmental policies and objectives to individual behaviors. Consequently, this dissertation seeks to provide insight into understanding and overcoming a lack of supply manager support for environmental sustainability. A research model based on the Theory of Planned Behavior used survey data from practicing supply managers to study the behavioral ...

Improving Non-Profit Organizations: Mon Ami, Dylan Yang, Kevin Diaz, Santos Miletes, Robert Tonucci

Academic Symposium of Undergraduate Scholarship

For our Collaborative Learning Program winter term group project, we completed community service at Mon Ami [1] and Service by going to the non-profit every Friday to help the teachers in the day care center. While we were there, our group made observations about the non-profit organization. At the end of the community service experience, our group constructed solutions for the problems we discovered at the non-profit organization and recommended ways to implement these solutions. Our research results were presented to our CLP professors in written form and as a formal presentation.

[1 ]The organization's name has been changed ...

Ua62 Gordon Ford College Of Business, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Finding Aids

Records created by Gordon Ford College of Business and its reporting offices:

• Student Organizations
• Accounting Club
• Advertising Club
• Accounting (UA62/5)
• Economics
• Finance
• Information Systems
• Management
• Marketing
• Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation
• Center for Professional Selling
• MBA
• Small Business Development Center (UA62/3)

These offices once reported to the Gordon Ford College of Business:

• Legal Area Studies
• Pulic Service Institute
• Mid-Management & Distributive Education

The People Dimension In Logistics And Supply Chain Management – Its Role And Importance, Edward Sweeney

Books/Book chapters

It is widely recognised that the effective application of logistics and supply chain management (SCM) has a vital role to play in European economic recovery. Experience suggests that success in achieving higher levels of supply chain integration (SCI) depends on both physical and technical components (the hard-wiring), as well as human and behavioural components (the soft-wiring). There is significant evidence that the latter has been largely neglected by the logistics and SCM community. Furthermore, it appears that the majority of supply chain improvement initiatives by practitioners have been primarily concerned with technological, structural and process issues. This chapter argues that ...

Two Essays On The Unintended Consequences Of Sarbanes-Oxley On Small Banks And Small Businesses, Earl C. Howell

Dissertations, Theses and Capstone Projects

These essays examine the impact of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act on small banks (Essay #1) and small businesses (Essay #2). Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), passed in 2002 by the Congress of the United States, was intended to enhance the security of the public shareholder through extensive reporting and compliance programs. As some compliance costs are fixed, the costs of SOX would logically fall disproportionately upon smaller banks, possibly producing unintended consequences. These costs if significant may impact the bank’s choice of strategy. How then can the bank respond? The expectation of a negative impact on small banks is well documented, and consistent ...

Two Essays On The Knowledge-Based View Of The Firm: The Impact Of Local Market Knowledge On Domestic Firm Performance In Both Transitional And Developed Economies, Ted B. Randall

Dissertations, Theses and Capstone Projects

Are there strategies that domestic transitional economy firms (TEFs) can use in order to be successful given the increasing numbers of multinational enterprises (MNEs) operating in their home country markets? How do domestically focused, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in developed economies maintain satisfactory levels of performance when faced with the superior resources of MNEs and the resulting increased competitiveness in domestic industrial markets?

I attempt to answer these two questions in two separate papers. In the first paper, I examine TEFs by using research on the knowledge-based view of the firm (KBV) to create and test a new theory ...

A Contemporary Examination Of The Miles And Snow Strategic Typology Through The Lenses Of Dynamic Capabilities And Ambidexterity, Marc D. Sollosy

Dissertations, Theses and Capstone Projects

This study’s focuses on the examination of the Miles and Snow typology through the lenses of dynamic capabilities with a particular emphasis on ambidexterity. While each element of the typology has received varying degrees of study in both the management and marketing literature, to date, no study has examined the typology, as first proposed by Miles and Snow under the influence of either dynamic capabilities or ambidexterity. This study proposes to examine the alignment of the three elements of the typology with each other and the four strategic archetypes identified by Miles and Snow. It was Hambrick’s observation ...

Supply Chain "Mega-Trends": Current Status And Future Trends, Edward Sweeney

Practitioner Journals

The supply chain management (SCM) concept has become embedded in the thinking of many organisations in recent years. Originally introduced by management consultants in the early 1980s, SCM has a strong focus on integration of processes across functions within firms, as well as between the organisations that comprise the wider extended enterprise. There is a significant body of research to support the notion that the consistent delivery of value to customers is predicated on higher levels of intra-firm and inter-firm integration. Putting the supply chain integration (SCI) concept into practice is critically dependent on the ability of firms to manage ...

Emergency Service Leader Perceptions Of Legitimacy, John R. Fisher, R. Jeffery Maxfield

Dr. John R. Fisher

This study adds to the qualitative data showing how leaders in the emergency services perceive legitimacy and the bases of power. The study examines leader perception of the reasons their subordinates view their leadership as legitimate. Two definitions of legitimacy are presented: the traditional viewpoint of French and Raven (1959) associating legitimate power “with having status or formal job authority” and the other proposed by Maxfield (2012) in the LEAP leadership model basing legitimacy more on the characteristics leaders bring to their positions. Emergency service students interviewed leaders in their career fields, determining their view of legitimacy. They found that ...

Power And Politics In Organizations, T. W. Camm

Mining Engineering

Aristotle made the observation that man is a political animal. Engineers often like to think they are above the fray when it comes to organizational politics, but most organizational theorists believe politics is a fundamental dynamic in any group. This paper examines the various ways that people use power within organizations to negotiate the political interactions in the work place.

Knowledge-Sharing Behavior In Dairy Sector Of Pakistan, Syed Rahmatullah Shah, Khalid Mahmood Dr.

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This study is about knowledge sharing behavior in dairy sector. Two-hundred middle managers (with professional qualifications) from five industrial units in Pakistan were selected for study. Fifty-seven managers participated in the study (29 percent of the sample). Research model and hypotheses were based on behavioral theories, i.e., TRA, TPB, and TAM. Data were collected through a questionnaire using Likert scale. Spearman’s and Pearson’s correlation coefficients and structural equation model among different variables tested hypotheses of the research modal. The study proved that attitude, intention, and behavior had accepted mutual positive direct effects for knowledge sharing in dairy ...

Dynamic It Capabilities: Theory Development And Empirical Examination, Jeffrey J. Pittaway

Open Access Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines dynamic IT capabilities: firms’ abilities to integrate, build, and reconfigure information technology resources concurrently with organizational business process and managerial processes in pursuit of performance advantages in a changing or uncertain environment. Research in dynamic IT capabilities has increased with the recognition that organizational survival and growth requires organizational change to resolve a range of management challenges that emerge over time. In prior research, specific constructs of dynamic IT capabilities have been the subject of independent empirical investigation. This has resulted in conflicting conceptualizations of dynamic capabilities that obfuscate theoretical definition, empirical grounding and measurement. We seek ...